A SLOW RETURN…

Well, we went to the metro station around 2 hours before our flights were to leave, which we thought would allow us enough time to get to the airport. Apparently, though, there wasn’t a route on the metro to the airport, or so we were told by the officer on the platform. It is interesting to note that it was the metro that we had taken from the airport to the central rail station, but tacking it up to anti-American sentiments as an attempt to misdirect us, we did as he said, paying for the much more expensive train ticket. We still could not find exactly where to go, but somehow we came across a group of Spanish women, probably in their mid-40s, and again I used my Spanish skills to determine that they, too, were headed to the airport. We got to the airport after a long conversation with the women, and realized that we had little time to make our flights – until about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, when they informed us of a 1 hour delay due to late takeoff at Heathrow from congestion. After catching the last shuttle back to Oxford, we made it back at about midnight, with a mound of work still to do. But I can honestly say that I have never before felt so self-reliant and I have never before felt like I could fit so many activities into a 36-hour period.

I’ll be sure to let you know how week 2 goes – this coming weekend, it’s off to Paris! Arrevoire!